Here's a good example of how the co-op system, which was for many years the mainstay of family farming, has been co-opted itself into becoming the mouthpiece of corporate agribusiness.

CAFO's (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) should have to get discharge permits for their waste, whether or not they discharge into running water. We're not talking one or two cow pies, here - we're talking thousands upon thousands of gallons of liquefied manure, which will get into the groundwater where ever it's dumped.

But the 'other side' (enviromental activists) here has a few points it needs to get straight, too. Not all livestock operations are CAFO - smaller ones like mine are free range or pastured. My cattle will never see a feedlot (which is the CAFO destination of choice for most beef cattle in the US). I shouldn't have to get a permit, because the waste my cows dump is not processed, liquefied and hauled in tankers: they just shit where they stand! But the activists want all livestock producers to get permits!

The only sunny side in this whole morass is the fact that liquefied waste is expensive to haul, so most of the time it's dumped somewhere on the farm factory property. Which means the groundwater contamination will show up first there - and out west, water is not a trivial concern. I figure these morons just won the right to pee in their own wells.

The Montana Farm Bureau Federation (MFBF) applauds the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Courts' refusal to reconsider its Feb. 28 ruling on the Environmental Protection Agency's Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation rule.